His Secret
by sapphire-angel-gem
Summary: If there was any one thing you should know about my best friend it was that he liked to keep secrets. Big secrets. The sequel, 'His Mind', is now truly and finally up.


**His Secret**

**Disclaimer- **I do not own the Harry Potter universe.

**A/N- **Yes, I know, another one-shot to show just how hard I've been finding it to keep my mind on one thing at a time. I am working on my stories, but with the sudden influx of maths homework Ihaven't had much time for frivolties. This is just an idea that I started scribbling down when I needed a small break and it grew from there. It seems to be in different tastes to what I usually write, as humour seems to be my big thing at the moment. Let me know if you like my angsty writing as well as my humour!

Anyway, better head back to my homework. Enjoy the story!

**Summary- **If there was any one thing you should know about my best friend it was that he liked to keep secrets.

If there was any one thing you should know about my best friend it was that he liked to keep secrets. Big secrets. The kind of secrets that develop inside of you and cling while it slowly eats away at you, until you finally crack.

He never did though.

He never cracked, not once.

He kept his secrets jealously close to him, only telling us if the need was dire. But we didn't really mind. Because he was our best friend. Because nothing bad could ever happen to him. Because we didn't want to believe that anything bad could ever happen to him.

He was perhaps the kindest soul I would ever meet. He would put other's welfare before his own. He would make sure we were alright before attending to his own needs. Sometimes he wouldn't even attend to his needs, so busy was he making sure that we didn't need anything else. He would have given up anything for us.

Even his life.

But that was Harry Potter for you. The typical hero in mannerism, though you'd never know he was one by just looking at him. He _looked_ normal enough. But he wasn't normal. And he knew he never could be. So he played the part of hero to perfection, adding in his own designs every now and then.

He was perhaps the best hero anyone could ever ask for. It took me awhile, though, to realise that he didn't want to be a hero. I was so dense. I wanted what he had. I wanted to be famous, to be known other that 'that red-headed kid' or 'Harry Potter's best friend'. I wanted to be the hero.

He kept me out of trouble too, you know. Held me back before I could attack a verbal assailant, even threw back a few insults on my behalf. A few times he's even distracted a teacher to give me time to stop doing whatever I was doing that could potentially get me in trouble.

He was good like that.

But he has never been good with emotions. Well, I should rephrase that. He's never been comfortable dealing with his own emotions. I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen him comforting Hermione, or Neville, or anyone else. I even heard tell that he stopped on his way to class once to talk to a distraught Hufflepuff second year who's father had recently died.

The fact that he refuses to verify this, and that there was one Potions lesson he missed the he shouldn't have done, makes me certain that it is true.

He was like an open book in that way, really. He wasn't exactly one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but no matter how hard he keeps his face carefully schooled, his eyes give him away.

Funny that. I never really understood the saying 'the eyes are the windows to the soul' until I met him. His green eyes never fail to show us exactly what he is feeling. He may have what looked like a true smile on his face, but he could never make it reach his eyes when he was upset or angry.

We've learnt not to question him when he was upset or angry. Because if we bug him about it, he becomes more reluctant to tell us. When we first started getting to know him, we bugged him enough that he kept a lot of things to himself.

We still don't know what half those things are.

Over the years he has started telling us more, trusting us more. Not that he didn't always trust us, but there is a fine line, for him, between trusting someone with your life and trusting someone with your deepest, darkest secrets.

I've always had the feeling that he was keeping something from us. Something really big. It wasn't until just after fourth year that we found out about the extent of the treatment he suffers at the hands of the Dursleys, and that was just by chance.

However, this was nothing – _nothing_ – compared to what he kept from us around the middle of our fifth year.

It became apparent that he was dealing with something big when he quietly told Ginny he thought they should spend a bit of time apart. They'd been dating for a few months by then.

Now, this may not seem so strange to you, after all, teenage boys and girls get together and break up all the time. They mope around for awhile, pretend that their heart is broken, and then move on to their next conquest.

Harry was different though. Apart from his, admittedly, clumsy crush on Cho Chang, which disintegrated after the death of Cedric Diggory, he had never had any experience with relationships. His relationship was new to him and he was learning every step of the way, Ginny gently guiding him.

You'd think after awhile he might get frustrated with this. But he didn't. He listened carefully to everything she said, and would get all romantic and sappy in a way that made me want to gag and Hermione want to sigh happily.

He _adored _Ginny.

I'm not being biased either. He absolutely adored my sister. She could do no wrong in his eyes.

Well, that may be a bit of an over-exaggeration actually. He had scolded her, and she had told off him, but they never argued. They simply accepted what the other had to say. They may have even been, dare I say in, in love with each other.

Which was why it was so strange when Harry suggested they break it off for awhile.

After Ginny had done her fair share of crying, and storming and moping she perked up a bit with a new determination; she was going to find the reason Harry was breaking it off with her, and woe betide anyone that gets in her way. Especially if it was because another girl had caught his eyes.

Now, I would like to point out here that Ginny was completely off her rocker about that point. Harry had not said he wanted to break it off with her, only that he thought they should take some time off from seeing each other. Harry was not the sort that would go behind his girlfriend's back like that.

He just didn't have it in him.

I admit to having some doubts too though. As did Hermione. I think we lost sight of who the Harry we knew was. I was in protective big brother mode and Hermione was in comforting mode, trying to get Ginny to calm down.

No one spared a second though for Harry, who was only seen attending classes, came in after we went to sleep and got up before we woke.

It was Neville Longbottom that brought it to our attention. He casually mentioned that he hadn't seen Harry around for awhile, and that he seemed really depressed and tired in classes while Hermione and I tried to figure out how to stop Ginny from going on a rampage against every female in the school.

Harry did tend to disappear a lot, sure, but we usually always knew where he was, unless he took his map with him, which wasn't all that often. I think he knew we checked and left it for us to settle our minds. That was just the sort of person he was. Always thinking about us.

I'm not entirely sure what we were looking for on that map. All I know was that we'd check it every time he left and we would sigh in relief when we found him, continuously checking on him until he started returning. It got to the point where we actually questioned _why_ exactly we were doing this, but we could never come up with an answer.

Harry is actually the youngest out of the three of us, you know. Only a few months younger then me really. My birthday is in March, Hermione's birthday is in the September before mine, and his birthday is in July.

Despite the small age difference, I keep feeling that he needs to be protected, that I need to protect him. Hermione admitted that she felt the same way. There was just something about Harry that made us want to go to the ends of the earth if it would ensure his safety.

Hermione thinks it's because he's already been through so much that we want to spare him more pain. I can't help but think she's right. Something inside me is hurting when Harry tells us that he's seen Voldemort again, giving orders or killing, and that protective instinct rises almost beyond control. He's like the little brother that I've never had.

Yes, I know, I said the dreaded name. Voldemort. Hear that? Harry taught me that. Harry taught me that if I say the name, lightning bolts aren't going to hit me, and Voldemort himself isn't going to apparate next to me and kill me. It was just a name, like Ronald Bilius Weasley, and Harry James Potter, and Hermione Jane Granger. It was just a name. I owed it to Harry anyway. If my best friend had been hurt so much by the bastard, and kept seeing horrifying visions of him, then the least I could do was say the name.

Being occupied with my other younger sibling, the one who was prone to fits of violence and had taken to blasting anything in her path, and hexing any Gryffindor that got in her way, it took a week before I got the Marauder's Map out to see if I could find where my best friend had disappeared to.

The problem was I wasn't sure I _wanted_ to know whatever secret Harry was keeping this time. This secret seemed huge, potentially dangerous. I felt that after finding out this secret I would never look at someone in the same way again.

Listen to me. If Hermione or Harry heard me talking like this I'd never live it down. I don't get all philosophical and profound. I never have. But this instance requires deep thinking, analysing everything, having a strategy in place for when Ginny lost it. I likened it to a game of chess, really.

Except, in chess, the goal is much more simple.

It was Hermione who first suggested, rather reluctantly, that we search for Harry. She seemed to have the same qualms about it that I had. Unfortunately Ginny overheard out conversation and demanded that the three of us go and look at the map right at that very instant.

We, of course, were not about to refuse. She was right scary sometimes.

Harry wasn't all that hard to find actually. Imagine our surprise when we found the unmoving dot labelled "Harry Potter" in the middle of an unused classroom. Harry had much more creative hide-aways.

The thing that had caught our attention, though, was a dot labelled "Cho Chang" stopping at every room and closer to Harry all the time. When she reached Harry's classroom she entered it with only a moment's hesitation.

Again I will say that Harry has never been the type to go behind his girl-friend's back. He was too shy, so… not a cheater, for lack of a good word to describe him. We just didn't think he had it in him. He never so much as _looked_ at other girls other then to maybe offer them a grateful smile if they did something for him, no matter how much they flirted and showed off in front of him.

However, all reasoning like this few out the window as we watched Chang chase Harry around the classroom before catching him. We could only imagine what was happening, and an image of Harry pining after the girl wouldn't leave my mind at all. At that moment I would have cheerfully strangled the boy.

When Chang left the room and headed to her common room Ginny went over to Harry's trunk and rummaged around for a bit until she pulled out one of Harry's most treasured possessions with a smirk; his father's invisibility cloak.

Whenever I see that cloak I think fondly of the dangerous, life-threatening adventures we had while hidden underneath it. Though I cannot help but think most kindly upon the time Harry and Hermione got in so much trouble because they left the cloak up in the astronomy tower. Hermione tends to get really upset whenever I mention it though. Can't really imagine why.

Sorry? Oh yeah, right, my story.

It didn't straight away occur to me_ why_ exactly she was pulling out the cloak and looking at us expectantly. In fact, I was very busy fearing that the cloaks days were numbered, since Harry loved it. That's usually Ginny's motto, 'An eye for an eye'.

When she had finally had enough of my blank look she declared that she was going to go to that classroom and hex Harry, with or without us.

_There is no way I'm going to let him get away with this!_

It was a sign of how angry I was that I agreed straight away. There was no Harry to hold me back this time. Hermione hesitated for only a moment before agreeing to come along. We were _all_ angry, you see. We weren't really sure what to do with what we classed as a large betrayal, and Ginny's idea sounded extremely satisfying.

It was a slow process moving through the castle with all three of us under the cloak, trying to keep all of us covered and keep Ginny from dashing ahead and getting caught by a prefect or teacher. She was livid, and she kept clenching her hand over the handle of her wand as though imagining what she would do to Harry when we got to our destination.

It should, perhaps, have been more of a surprise to us then it was when we reached the classroom only to find Chang walking inside again. I could see Ginny's large smile at the thought of what she could do to both of them, so we quickly slipped inside before she got too impatient, closing the door soundlessly behind us.

Well, we had to be quiet didn't we? If either of them heard us, Ginny's revenge plan would be ruined and she would take it out on us.

You know what it's like to expect something to the point that you are absolutely certain it will happen, and then it doesn't? The feeling of mixed disbelief and almost disappointment was not something I would forget in a hurry, for the scene we found in that classroom was _much _different to the one we had imagined.

Harry was not kissing Chang. In fact, he wasn't even smiling at her. He was backing away almost fearfully while she advanced on him with a predatory-type of look in her eyes.

At first I thought it was all an act for our benefit. But I had quickly realised that neither one of them actually knew we were there, and the insults there were trading, the things they were saying, were not things one would say to their significant other in a relationship, acting or not.

I was impressed though. I didn't realise Harry knew half of those expressions. Though I could be bet Hermione's going to be on my back later for corrupting him with all the swearing I do.

It seemed Harry could have quite happily stayed like that all night if he had to. It was quite obvious that this had occurred before, for they both knew how to hit the other's nerve. Chang, it had seemed though, had different ideas, and trading insults all night was not on the list. I had barely had time to blink before she pounced forwards, grabbed Harry's chin and forced him into a kiss while he automatically tried to push her away, strings of what he was saying sometimes reaching us.

_Get off Cho!_

_I already have a girlfriend that a care very much for._

_I don't like you that way!_

Now, never let it be said that Harry was not a fighter. He had faced Voldemort four times in his life and survived. He had snatched the Philosopher's Stone right out of the evil git's clutches. He had slain a basilisk with a sword for my sister. He had driven away over a hundred dementors to save his godfather. And he had competed in a tournament designed for students three years older then him and won, though it did result in Voldemort's rebirth.

But if there was one thing all of this had in common, it was that it all required thinking on his feet, action to prevent death, fighting for survival. They were those do or die sort of situations Harry's always getting himself into.

Right at that moment though, trying to stop Chang (have you noticed me using her last name? I started that after this incident.) from forcing herself on him, Harry was clearly terrified and unsure what to do.

And us? His loyal best friends and loving girlfriend? We were standing stock-still under that cloak, unable to move due to the shock and horror we felt while we had to wonder how long exactly this had been going on, how long Harry had been made to feel helpless by this girl.

It wasn't until we saw Chang pull a vial out of her pocket, the colour of it telling us exactly why she had returned after leaving the room the first time, that we acted.

Ginny… Ginny was furious. Sometimes I almost wince in sympathy when I think about what she had done to people who have wronged her. Almost. But I have never regretted what _we_ did to Chang that night. I have never regretted putting her in the hospital wing for a week as she recovered, nor did I regret serving a months worth of detentions for what we did.

I certainly have never regretted pulling out my wand and hitting her with the slugs curse I had hit myself with in second year, following close behind Ginny's bat-bogey curse and Hermione's Furnunculus curse.

Harry had only let a momentary flicker of surprise over his face when we pulled the cloak off before he bent over the smashed vial. The moment he had gotten a good look at it he had recoiled.

_Love potion…_

For a moment he looked at us in amazement, relief and gratefulness. That quickly changed to fright though and before we could stop him, he was off, bolting out of the classroom.

We didn't stop him.

See, the thing you need to learn about Harry is that he needs time to get things off of his chest. He needs time to think them over before he can be confronted with it. So while he was off dealing with the issues that he had we went to McGonagall's office and told her what we believed had been happening, and what had happened in that classroom.

Though a bit annoyed that we got a detention, I was pleased to note that McGonagall had that look on her face that she usually got when she was planning on handing out a particularly nasty detention when she went to collect Chang.

For five days Harry didn't say anything to any of us. He sat quietly next to us in class, and studiously did his homework in the evenings in the front of the fire with us, but he never said anything to us. He never said anything to anyone.

I knew what was wrong. He was ashamed. Ashamed that he had let something like that happen to him, and that we had caught him at one of his weakest moments, when he couldn't defend himself.

We didn't really care. Though Harry seems to think that he always has to appear strong, he had yet to realise that he didn't have to in front of us. He was _allowed_ to yell and scream and rant and rave and wail and cry if he wanted to. We were always going to be there for him, ready to help him in any sort of situation. He may have been unaware of it, but helping to deal with emotion breakdowns if he ever had one was part of the job description.

You know how earlier I said that Harry never cracked when he was holding those huge secrets in? Well, I suppose you could say that Harry didn't want to crack, which was why he didn't. He told me once that the last time he had cried about something he had felt like he was losing a part of himself that he couldn't get back and he had felt so helpless and weak.

That had been when he was seven.

Harry's had years to build that brick wall around his emotions, a brick wall so strong that it would not break under the barrage of emotions that was constantly putting pressure on it. Though, I dare say that a crack has started to make its way through it, one that has the potential to destroy the whole thing.

When he started talking to us again, he wouldn't talk about what had happened. Every time someone brought it up he would change the subject. We bugged him, nagged him, pleaded with him, ranted at him, ignored him, talked calmly to him… nothing we did ever worked and the more we tried to get him to open up, the further away he slipped from us.

So we gave up. We stopped asking him about it and he came back to us, as happy as he had been before just with the underlying issue sitting on his shoulders, refusing to budge until he talked to us. He and Ginny became an item again, as though nothing had ever happened.

In fact, everything went back to the way it was as though nothing out of the ordinary ever occurred. Peace was restored in the Gryffindor Common room. Neville stopped asking us about Harry. Hermione attacked her homework with a vengeance. I sat around thinking about Quidditch and trying desperately to ignore my homework and Hermione's burning glares. Harry sat quietly beside us, doing his homework with one hand and holding Ginny's hand with the other while she read a book and occasionally met his eyes to smile at him.

So, why am I here? Why have I broken our most sacred Statue of Secrecy to sit on this red couch and talk to you, a muggle, about our world so I could tell you all about my friend? Why are you listening so intently to me if the story has ended, if there is no problem, if everything has worked itself out?

Because the story hasn't ended. In fact, I believe that it is far from its ending. I'm here because I don't know how to help my friend. I don't know how to catch him when he starts to fall, and I don't know how to be there for him when he finally does crack under all the pressure.

I'm here because Harry refused to come here and talk to you himself, preferring to deal with his problems alone then speak to his stranger about the secrets he holds so jealously close.

And if you can't help him… I don't think anyone else can.


End file.
